gramilano

While it wasn’t exactly a case of ‘A Star is Born’, 21-year-old Clau­dio Cov­i­ello was cer­tainly given a golden oppor­tun­ity when Ivan Vasiliev couldn’t go on at La Scala last night.

Cov­i­ello had learnt the role of Quasimodo in Roland Petit’s Notre-Dame de Paris for just a single mat­inée per­form­ance. The even­ing spots were taken by Roberto Bolle, Massimo Murru and Ivan Vasiliev. Except for Murru this was début time for everybody.

Vasiliev, made-up and ready to take on the role for the first time, as well as mak­ing his first appear­ance at Milan’s famed opera house, was limber­ing up on stage half an hour before the cur­tain. Land­ing after a jump he felt pain in his back, and after quick con­sulta­tions with spe­cial­ists, it was decided that he couldn’t go on. Cov­i­ello, who had danced his unique sched­uled per­form­ance that after­noon, and was hanging around to see Vasiliev in the role, was hur­riedly ushered into make-up to pre­pare in the 25 minutes remain­ing before the start.

There can’t be a worse feel­ing than hear­ing an audi­ence cry out in dis­ap­point­ment when your name is read out as the star’s sub­sti­tute, and the cour­age to go on and prove that the ticket was still worth the price is a tal­ent in itself. Cov­i­ello proved that he was indeed worthy of the role, and played it with tech­nical pre­ci­sion and com­mit­ment to the act­ing. Petit’s styl­ised hunch­back cho­reo­graphy becomes just a series of eccent­ric con­tem­por­ary dance moves without a true inter­pret­a­tion of char­ac­ter, and Cov­i­ello, while not hav­ing fully mastered a com­mand of the stage, demon­strated that he should be given more oppor­tun­it­ies to shine. Unfor­tu­nately, the La Scala bal­let com­pany doesn’t have the fren­etic sched­ule of the ABT or Mari­in­sky, and its dan­cers get pre­cious few moments on stage where the real busi­ness of com­mu­nic­a­tion through dance can be developed.

Petra Conti, his Esmer­alda, had already danced with Murru, and rehearsed with Vasiliev, but never with his sub­sti­tute. It didn’t show. She was strong and touch­ing as the love interest of sev­eral men, and has a beau­ti­ful line, express­ive legs and feet, and impress­ive bal­ances. She also deserves more stage time!

Eris Nezha, who we’d already seen on open­ing night, was an assured and tech­nic­ally for­mid­able Phoe­bus, the vain Cap­tain Esmer­alda falls for. Ant­onino Sutera, who sparkles in roles like the Golden Idol and the Blue­bird, was suit­ably mean as Frollo, the lech­er­ous Arch­deacon of Notre Dame.

So, all in all, the even­ing was saved, though 2,000 people are still wait­ing to see what Ivan Vasiliev can do with this role.

Pho­tos: from top, Clau­dio Cov­i­ello as Quasimodo; Cov­i­ello with Petra Conti as Esmer­alda; Eris Nezha, Cov­i­ello, Conti and Ant­onino Sutera.

Share